Our Emotional Response

I appreciate Ryan choosing that song. We didn't talk about it at all, but Mike and I were talking about Psalm 51 on the way down today. I'm going to Psalm 51 in my sermon today, so I appreciate that. It's always a good lead-in. In my childhood, when I was growing up, and I would say even in my adulthood to some extent, one of my favorite forms of entertainment in terms of television and movies would be science fiction. Star Trek was always one of my favorites.

As I was a kid, I would come home after school, and the original Star Trek series came on in the evening, and I would turn that on and watch the adventures of Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise. As a kid, that always captured my imagination. There's a character in the original Star Trek series, Spock. Probably most of you would know who Spock was. Spock was a Vulcan. And as a Vulcan, Spock did not show emotion.

Or very rarely did he show it. It wasn't like Vulcans didn't have emotions at all, as they wrote this story, but Vulcans in their history had emotional expression. Vulcans actually had expression that was very intense. Emotions that were very intense, far beyond even human emotions. And it led to violence, it led to destruction in their history. And so as the story goes, the Vulcans dedicated themselves to logic as a means of pulling themselves out of that violence and bringing everything back into check.

They devoted themselves to pure logic and living according to logic, and keeping the emotion suppressed. Now what made Spock so unique was that he was only half Vulcan. His father was a Vulcan, but his mother was a human.

And so there were times throughout the series where maybe Spock could be provoked, where he let his guard down and you would see that emotion pop through, that he always tried very hard to keep under the surface.

But the fact was, it was there. But again, as the story went, as a race, the Vulcan people were dedicated to logic. Their emotions were kept locked up inside, suppressed, and again, rarely ever saw the light of day. Brethren, in our calling and in our relationship with God, in our spiritual life that we live, do we ever run the risk of maybe kind of being like a Vulcan? I would say maybe the first risk is even bringing Star Trek into a sermon. But, do we ever run the risk of almost being like a Vulcan in our spiritual lives before God? In other words, as God's people, do we suppress our emotions when it comes to the understanding we have of the Word of God, to the life that we've been called to live?

Do we just sort of suppress those things deep down, afraid to let them out, afraid to show any kind of emotional expression as we worship God, as we study His Word, and as we put these things into practice in our lives? I think it's a legitimate question. I think sometimes we can tend to look around maybe at other religious practices, how other churches or other religions maybe practice their worship or some of their expression. We look at that, and I would say in many cases it's far more emotional than the way that we generally tend to worship when we come together.

Maybe we turn on the television on Sunday morning, and if you've ever flipped around in the channels, you see the church service taking place somewhere, and there's this great emotional upwelling of emotional response in the way that they're conducting their worship service or doing things. And we can think, well, that's maybe form and not substance. That's feel-good religion. And sometimes we can tend to say, I'm not going to do that.

I'm going to distance myself from being emotionally based in my worship of God, and I'm going to just sort of stick to the Scripture. And I would say if we're not careful, we can start to look at the Scripture as, you know, there's laws and commandments, there's do's and don'ts, there's sin and repentance, as Mr. Imse is talking about, but we can almost kind of evaluate it as, you know, step one, step two, step three, ABC, very logical, but without necessarily experiencing the motion that God actually desires that we experience by living this way of life.

So my question for us today, to what degree should our emotions and our feelings play a part in our spiritual lives? What should our emotional response be to this way of life that God has called us to live? You know, there's head knowledge in the Scripture, there's understanding, but there's also emotion.

And the question is, to what degree should we express that emotion or exhibit those feelings in our spiritual lives today? I want to see what the Scripture has to give for us to consider. I'd say the first place we need to start is from the understanding that having emotions is perfectly acceptable and normal.

In fact, we were created with emotions for a specific purpose. We won't turn there, but in Genesis 1, verse 26, God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and it was so. So contained in the likeness of God by which we've been created isn't just sort of a physical form and that's it, but it's our intellect, it's our reasoning, and contained in that package as well is our emotions. God the Father and Jesus Christ are emotional beings, and I don't mean that in an inappropriate way. I don't mean to say that they're just ruled over and governed by their emotions.

Probably some of the worst decisions I've ever made in my life were made when it was just sort of an emotional reaction to something. You know, that's not what God the Father and Jesus Christ are like. They are emotional beings. They express emotions. But the emotions don't rule over them and govern what they do, but they do very much respond in a way that is tied in to the emotions that even they experience. I would say as we look in Scripture, if I were to ask you what the greatest emotion you can think of is, probably most of us would say love. You know, God is love. John 3, 16 tells us that God so loved the world that He did something. He gave His only begotten Son. He sent His Son as a sacrifice for sin so that our sins could be forgiven as we repent before God, as we come under that sacrifice. And through that process we can be reconciled to God. But the process began because God so loved the world. And out of that expression of His love, out of that compassion He has towards mankind, He acted.

Love, compassion, mercy, I would say even grief, anger, those are all emotions exercised by God in the Scripture, but they're balanced with His perfect judgment. They're balanced with God's wisdom and His sound-mindedness so that when God does express emotion, it is perfect. It's not just this explosion of emotion. He got angry so He wiped out every human being. You know, God, when He responds with emotion, it is in balance with the rest of His nature and character, and His use of it is perfect. Human beings, we were given emotions by creation. The way we use them and express them are by our own choice. So we're not always going to use our emotions and express them in a godly manner. But the point is we should be living this life, learning to do so, learning to govern our emotions, but use them as well in the manner in which God the Father and Jesus Christ do.

During the time that Jesus Christ walked the earth as a human being, He had many opportunities to express emotion. So I want to walk through a few accounts that we have contained in the Gospels for us of Christ expressing emotion. And hopefully it will help us to see that, first of all, emotion is a natural part of life, is to be used as a part of our expression. But also there is a right and a proper and a balanced way to express it. Jesus Christ came to do a ministry to fulfill the will of His Father, to lay His life down as a sacrifice. It wasn't just a logical progression of events, but there was love and compassion and mercy wrapped all up in that. And so I want us to be able to at least see through some elements of His example that we can incorporate those things today as we live in our calling before God. So let's take a look at an example of Jesus Christ showing some emotion. Let's go to Matthew 9, verse 35.

Matthew 9, verse 35. If you read through the Gospel accounts all throughout Jesus' life and the people He encountered and the situations He faced, He expressed love and compassion, mercy. He expressed amazement at the unbelief of the religious leaders that should have recognized who He was. He expressed frustration. He expressed sorrow. He even expressed anger. Matthew 9, verse 35. It says, So I want you to just kind of think about this for a minute. Imagine what it would have been like to be Jesus Christ as you're traveling about. And word is spreading. Maybe He performed a miracle or two and suddenly people saw. He had their attention. People began to follow. And now just think about what He would have encountered in the terms of people's disabilities, their struggles, the heartbreaking circumstances that they faced. Oftentimes when I'm over in Africa and traveling, you'll see out on the street beggars. And it's not uncommon in Nigeria to see somebody who's basically on a skateboard. Their legs are tucked in, but their limbs are just shriveled up. And they kind of push themselves along on their skateboard through traffic, door to door, window to window, trying to just see if somebody will help them out with a gift or donation of some sort. So you just imagine Christ as these people came to Him and just the various struggles that they went through. How would you respond? How did Jesus Christ respond? Verse 36, it says, But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. And so Christ had compassion, and it was stirred by the fact that He could look around at these crowds, and He could see they had needs physically and spiritually. His emotions were stirred, as it says, because He saw them as being sheep without a shepherd. And they needed healing, especially spiritually, in this way. So what verse 36 is describing is an emotional response by Jesus Christ. Again, not in some out-of-control, inappropriate way, but just simply by what He saw, it provoked an emotion with Him, and He responded in compassion. Verse 37, Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is truly plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. And so the response was to pray to God to seek that He would provide that which was needed, that God would provide shepherds and ministry and those who could care for the people, and to nurture them and help them along in a way that they needed. Ultimately, first and foremost, to be spiritually right with God. Let's look at another example of Jesus Christ showing emotion. Luke 7, beginning in verse 11.

Luke 7, verse 11. It says, Now it happened the day after that He went into a city called Nain, and many of His disciples went with Him and a large crowd. So He's entering in. Many people are following Him. Verse 12, And when He came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out. The only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a large crowd from the city was with her. So again, let's think about the circumstances here for a moment. What He's facing, the difficulty that He's encountering. Here is a woman who, it says, was a widow. So her husband was dead, and she had no means generally to provide for herself in that culture and in that way.

And the only other provider in the household, it would appear, would have been this son. It says He was a man, but He was the only son of this woman who was a widow. In that day and age, and in that time, there wasn't the social support systems that we have today.

There wasn't social security. There wasn't welfare. Family depended on family for survival. Her husband is dead. Now her son is dead. She's walking alongside the coffin, and she's weeping. This is the situation Jesus Christ encounters. So just imagine the loss of this woman, what it is that she's experiencing. Verse 13, it says, And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and He said to her, Do not weep. Again, His compassion over the circumstance and the human suffering that He encountered. Verse 14, Imagine what that reunion would have been like. You know, this woman, her husband's dead, her son's dead.

Probably much hope is lost. Jesus Christ walks up on the scene, and He just says, arise. Now He's alive. He's speaking. Imagine the rejoicing. Imagine the emotions of that mother. You think Jesus Christ was unaffected by that? I think He very much was. I suspect Jesus Christ rejoiced with them. I mean, consider the joyous reunion that that would have been. Verse 16, it says, And this report about Him went throughout all Judea and all the surrounding region.

Ultimately, this fulfilled a purpose which was spreading the gospel. Jesus Christ did do things in a very humanitarian and compassionate way, but ultimately the purpose as well was to spread the gospel of the kingdom. To teach people that God had not forgotten His people, and that He had come to this earth now to lay His life down as a sacrifice.

His message was, you know, the kingdom of God is near, repent, believe in the gospel. So the miracles that He did in part helped to promote the message that He was teaching. But let's not, brethren, as we read these things, discount the emotional experience that Jesus Christ would have walked through. As He interacted with these people and as He encountered their situation. I won't turn there, but Hebrews 4, verse 15 tells us that we don't have a high priest who can't sympathize with our weaknesses.

Jesus Christ is our high priest. He sits at the right hand of the throne of God, and He can sympathize. He lived this physical life. He experienced what it was to be in the flesh, the struggles, the loss, as well as the joy and the triumph. All the things that you and I experience in this life, Jesus had the opportunity to experience these things. He does understand, and He understands the emotion of it all as well. Again, He's experienced it. He knows what it means to suffer loss. He's seen it personally.

In the account of Jesus Christ's life through the Gospels, what you'll notice is that there is no mention of His physical Father. This would be His stepfather, Joseph. There's no mention of Joseph after Christ's young life, probably about the age of 12. There's no mention of Him following that portion of Jesus Christ's life. Most believe that Mary was a widow, that at some point Joseph died along the way. If we consider that Jesus Christ was the firstborn of Mary, and Mary obviously did not remain a virgin. There were other siblings that came along as a product of Joseph and Mary.

Jesus Christ, the eldest in the family, the firstborn, younger siblings, Mary's a widow, Joseph has died. And He would have understood intimately what this woman in Luke was facing. He understood perfectly what it meant for a woman to have a family in this way. He would have understood the role of the firstborn son now stepping in to be the head of the household, and what it would have meant to support the mother emotionally and to help the younger siblings along the way.

Jesus Christ experienced that in His life. In fact, in John 19, verses 26 and 27, it's a time of the crucifixion. Just before He's getting ready to die, what is on His mind? Well, He looks down and He sees the disciple whom He loved, John standing there, and He sees His mother Mary standing there as well, and He says, Woman, behold your son, referring to John. And He says to John, behold your mother. And the Scripture says that John took her to his own home from that hour. And so Jesus Christ, right up to the point of virtually His last breath, was fulfilling His responsibility of seeing of the firstborn, seeing that His mother was cared for, as that had been His responsibility upon the death of Joseph.

So these are just things, brethren, that we can think about and consider. What would have been His response to seeing this woman and her son in their circumstance? And it says He was moved with compassion. He understood.

Jesus Christ also expressed anger during His ministry.

We won't turn there because I've covered it in not too distant past, but John 2, verses 13 and 17 is the example of Jesus coming in and cleansing the temple.

He'd come and seen what those officials working at the temple were doing in terms of merchandising the people. It was around the Passover time, and people assembled in Jerusalem to worship God, to offer sacrifice to Him. And you had the money changers at the temple. You had those that were selling the sheep and the oxen for the sacrifices. It was a system of robbery, basically. It was like the money changers. It would be like going to get a payday loan or a title loan, an incredible rate of loss on the exchange. Same with the sale of the animals for the sacrifices. And Christ said, you've made my father's house a den of thieves. And He was angry.

And He wove together a whip of cords, and He overturned the money changers' tables, and He drove the animals and those individuals out of the temple. Jesus Christ expressed anger, but He was not out of control. He was well within His purview. This was His Father's house that was being violated, and He was going to clean it up. Again, brethren, the examples we see through Scripture is that God the Father and Jesus Christ exercise their emotional response perfectly, balanced with judgment and understanding. It's part of the package of their character, but it is always in balance. Scripture also shows that Jesus Christ wept. Let's go to Luke 19, verse 37. Luke 19, verse 37.

It says, Now as He was drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice, for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, Bless is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. So this is following on the heels of what is referred to as a triumphal entry. Jesus Christ rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey's colt. They're throwing out the branches in the path before Him, and they're crying out, you know, Hosanna in the highest. Verse 39. It says, And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. But He answered and said to them, I tell you, that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out. Now as He drew near, He saw the city, and He says, He wept over it. He wept over Jerusalem. Verse 42, saying, If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave you, they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

So Jesus, as He comes into Jerusalem, as He's surveying the city there, expressed sorrow. And it says that He wept as He considered the physical and the spiritual plight of that city not long after His departure.

He looked on Jerusalem, He had compassion, and He wept.

Scriptures also show that Christ wept at Lazarus' tomb.

Jesus Christ was grieved as well over the hardness of heart of the religious leaders, their unwillingness to even try and understand in many cases. Scripture says He was troubled, He was deeply distressed, He was sorrowful even to the point of death at the time just preceding His arrest and crucifixion. Scripture says Jesus rejoiced over the understanding when His disciples' minds were opened to understand the things that He taught. He says He rejoiced, thanked His Father in Heaven. The Bible says Jesus Christ desired with great desire to partake in a final passover with His disciples before He suffered. Can you see all throughout His life the emotions that were expressed as He lived this way of life, as He fulfilled the will of His Father? It wasn't just, I'm here to do a job, step A, step B, step C, and it's done. All logical, all factual. Now the point was, there was emotion tied up all through this. And He set the example for us of how you and I should live this life as well.

In all the examples of Jesus Christ, the emotions that He displayed reflected the emotions of God. He said, if you've seen Me, you've seen My Father. And so He was an illustration, an example of how God would have responded Himself. God the Father had He walked the earth. Jesus Christ expressed that without deficiency and without distortion. His example shows us that our emotional responses do, in fact, have a great impact in the way that we live our spiritual lives. So how about us today, brethren, as we come to repentance in our life, as we commit our life to God, as we live this way day by day? Is there room for emotional expression? Do we have the ability to respond in a way that is emotion balanced with judgment and truth? Not just emotion for the point of emotion, but do we allow this way of life to produce an emotional response in us? Indeed, I believe we should. Let's take a look at an example from the early church, Acts 2.

Acts 2. Let's see what this emotional response looks like. This is the first Pentecost following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Peter here just preached his powerful sermon regarding the fact that the Messiah had come.

He was put to death in the fact that those that heard him played a part in the responsibility of his crucifixion. But now he was sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. Acts 2 and 36.

Peter says, And now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? It says they had an emotional response. They were cut to the heart. Essentially, they were convicted. But part of that would have involved the fact that they were distressed, they were sorrowful, they realized the impact of the fact that they personally had caused the death of the Messiah. And that emotion that upon that realization then, convicted them to want to take the next step, to do something about it. And they said, Men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter's response in verse 38.

And so, their spiritual life began with a realization of the truth, but it provoked as well an emotional response. We have to do something about this. It wasn't just a step A, step B, step C, logical progression. And the same is true with us. Our spiritual lives begin with the realization that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That each and every one of us caused the death of Jesus Christ. He had to die personally, for you and for me. If there had been nobody else on earth, but me, he still would have died and had to die for my sins. So that realization is the beginning of our conviction and our conversion.

And we understand that we then need to come under the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins and reconciliation to our Father in Heaven. That's just not a logical process that we walk through of and by itself. There is logic. There is facts. There is scriptural truth and understanding. But there is also a conviction and an emotional response that comes as a result of understanding these things.

You know, Christ died for me. What should that invoke in me? Well, it should invoke sorrow, regret, the fact that I have sinned. But also that leads to the realization that I need to turn my life around in repentance. Repentance, by definition, is turning and going the other way, changing your behavior.

Repentance contains sorrow within it. You know, is this understanding emotional? You bet it is. So is the commitment that we make. So is the way that we are to live our life each and every day. It's not being ruled over by our emotions, but it is very much wrapped up in our emotional being. A number of baptisms that I've been involved in over the years, I almost always see tears. Either from the person who's being baptized or a member of their family that's there witnessing that event.

Witnessing them make the covenant relationship with God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It's an emotional thing. Right along the side of that, there's often joy, there's laughter, there's smiles. It's an emotional experience. I was visiting recently with Greg Chek, and he was telling me about the opportunity he had to baptize his granddaughter Jane at the feast this year. You know, he said for him, that was an incredibly emotional thing. As you think about it, he's lived this way of life for decades. You know, his daughters made this commitment in her family, and now his granddaughter, he has the opportunity to baptize her, to lay hands on her, pray for God's Holy Spirit.

And you can just imagine, you know, somebody who's committed their life to this, and now two generations removed your family. That line continues on. Commitment to this. Very emotional experience. I certainly understand how that would be. Brethren, it's important for you and I to understand that there's nothing wrong with emotions, or expressing emotions as part of our spiritual lives before God in its proper context. There's balance, and there's understanding in those things. But we also have to be aware that emotionalism is a byproduct of our faith.

It's not the foundation of our faith. Say that again. Emotionalism is the byproduct of our faith. It's not the foundation of our faith. The rock-solid foundation, in part, is knowing that God sent his son, and he died for me. The emotional byproduct is that we're cut to the heart with the conviction to come under that sacrifice ourselves, and to live according to this way of life.

The emotional response comes out of the faith and the truth that we hold to. It's not the other way around. We don't define what we're going to live to as truth based on an emotional response. I've interacted with people on a number of occasions. When I had my business, I had employees who, on occasion, would tell me about some religious experience they had. It was very emotional, and they would kind of well up in their eyes with tears, and they would tell me about it. And yet, it wasn't based on the truth of Scripture.

They just simply were responding to the emotion. But the point is, we don't settle for what is truth based on what feels good and what is our emotional response. The truth is the truth in its God's Word. But by living it, it does, in fact, produce an emotional response in our life, hopefully each and every day. We can never allow our emotions to become the basis of our belief structure, but our belief structure will stir those emotions in us. Let's continue looking at this concept of repentance for a moment. 2 Corinthians 7.

2 Corinthians 7. This is an emotional process that's acknowledged by the Apostle Paul. Beginning in verse 8. 2 Corinthians 7, verse 8. Paul says, For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. You'll recall back in 1 Corinthians, that's the first letter he wrote to the church in Corinth there. He actually had a level of rebuke for them, because they were tolerating open sin in their midst.

You know, sexual sin was going on, being tolerated in the congregation. Also, there were people that were holding up leaders in competition to one another. I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, and we're holding them up in that way. And as well as other circumstances, Paul says, look, you need to be one. And he's taking them to task over these things that were creating division in their midst. And he says, you know, I was sorry to have to write that letter. But it produced something positive. He says, For though I did regret it, for I perceived that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while.

So there was an emotional response to the words that he said, because he convicted them with truth. Verse 9, he says, Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. So he writes this letter, points out the sin, rebukes them for it, and they were made sorry. But it wasn't sorry just for sorrowful sake.

He said, it produced something in them, the desire to repent and to change. He said, still in verse 9, that they were made sorry in a godly manner. There's actually a difference between the sorrow of this world and being sorrowful in a godly manner. You know, being sorrowful in a worldly way is like, you know, I'm driving down the highway speeding and I get pulled over, and I'm given a ticket, and I'm sorry I got caught. Sorry I got the ticket. But as soon as I'm around the corner and that police car's out of sight, I'm going back to, you know, 10, 15 miles an hour over.

That's the sorrow of the world. But godly sorrow is actually a conviction to change. That cuts us to the heart and its repentance. It's walking differently as a result. So verse 10, he says, for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication. He says, in all these things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. So there's this emotional response that came from the rebuke, from the acknowledgement of the truth.

They were made sorrowful, but now they're rejoicing in the fact that repentance has taken place and reconciliation with God here is restored. This is how this process works. Let's notice an example from King David, Psalm 51. Psalm 51, we were just singing this psalm in the last psalm. Psalm 51. The psalm is written by David shortly after his sin with Bathsheba. He's confronted about his sin. Here's his response. Psalm 51, verse 1. It says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions.

You know, David here is crying out to God for his compassion and his mercy. This isn't just a logical acknowledgement. This is an emotional plea. Have mercy on me, God. Verse 2, he says, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is always before me. Verse 4, against you and you only have I sinned, and none this evil in your sight. You know, all sin, brethren, is ultimately against God. David sinned against Bathsheba. He sinned against Uriah by having him killed.

But he's again acknowledging that all sin ultimately is against God. Against you and you only have I sinned, and none this evil in your sight. That you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. It's not saying that David was brought forth due to adultery or some other sin in that way. He's just saying sin is the human condition that we're all under.

That's what he was born into. But he says, verse 6, Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Can you sort of just feel the emotional plea of David here? As he confronts his sin and acknowledges it, and the horror of what he's done is settled in, and now he's just pleading with God, I need to come under your grace and your mercy.

It's based in logic and truth, but also this emotional response very much goes hand in hand. He's asking God to restore the joy and the gladness that comes as a result of being right with him. And that's an emotion as well. Verse 10, Create me a clean heart, O God. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. He says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me by your generous spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall be converted to you. God, if you restore me in this way, I will proclaim the praises of you to all who will hear. Verse 14, Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed. There is guilt when we recognize and acknowledge our sin. But also, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we come under cleanses us, our conscience, from that guilt.

We truly are repentant. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praises. For you do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. So, broken spirit, the contrite heart, it's humility. It's recognizing who and what we are before God. You know, this isn't a condition, again, that comes as a result of pure logic.

There's an emotional conviction here by which David pleads to God for his mercy and for his forgiveness. Verse 11, David asks God not to take his Holy Spirit from him. What does God's Holy Spirit do for us?

In part, God's Spirit helps us to balance our emotions and exercise them in the manner that he does. It's God's mind. It's God's presence in us through his Spirit. And the fruits of the Spirit, which is what is produced in us by God dwelling in us, those fruits are in many ways tied directly to the emotional elements of God's nature. Let's look at Galatians chapter 5 briefly.

Galatians chapter 5, verse 22 and 23. Let's just read through the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit is something that is produced in your life. If God's Spirit is in you, these things will be evident. Ephesians 5, verse 22 and 23.

Sorry, Galatians. My slip, Galatians 5.

Verse 22, it says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering. These are not elements of our nature and character apart from God. These are elements of God's nature. It's his love in us, his joy in us. His peace and long-suffering in us. Its kindness, its goodness, its faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. There is law against sin. Thou shalt not kill. It says there is no law against living these elements of God's nature in your life and expressing them in a right and a proper and a balanced way. They are the fruits of the Spirit of God. In 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, Paul says, God's Spirit is not a spirit of fear, but of power in love and a sound mind. So wrapped up in that is the package of a sound-minded approach, knowing when and how to express our emotion, to govern our emotion, and to use it in a right and proper way. We need to seek that from God.

What other ways are our emotions involved in living this spiritual life? Just a couple more examples briefly. How about dealing with our trials? James chapter 1.

James 1. We all come under trial and struggle at some point in our lives. James chapter 1, beginning in verse 2. James says, The New Living Translation says this. It says, Opportunity for great joy when you fall into these trials. This is an emotional response that is produced. It's not, hooray for the trial. You know, I just love a good trial. That's not what it's saying. It says, What is produced is that the testing of your faith produces patience. That's what we rejoice in, the fact that walking through the struggle and the circumstance, and depending on God, builds our character. We learn lessons. If we yield to God in His Spirit, we become more like God the Father and Jesus Christ in our life each and every day. That's where the joy resides. That is what God offers us and allows us to learn, even through the trial and struggle. It's an emotional response in many ways. 1 Peter chapter 4.

1 Peter 4 verse 12. Peter says, Beloved, do not think it strange, concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. You know, woe is me! What happened? Where did this trial come from? It's going to be a part of the human condition to struggle at times. Verse 13, he says, But rejoice, to the extent that you partake in Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

Again, emotionalism is the byproduct of our faith. The fact that we live this way of life, and we experience joy in rejoicing. Peter here saying, if you suffered as Jesus Christ did, and if you're taking it in faith, you can rejoice in the fact that you're going to be a partaker of the joy at the return of Jesus Christ, at the establishment of the kingdom of God. And you will rejoice in that, because you've suffered and endured just as Jesus Christ has suffered and endured. How else do our emotions stir us spiritually? What about in our relationships with one another? Relationships with one another. Romans 12, verse 9.

Romans 12, verse 9. Hear the Apostle Paul writing. He says, let love be without hypocrisy. A poor of what is evil, cling to what is good. So, you know, there's a response of emotion right here, right off the bat. He says, a poor of what is evil, and that doesn't just mean, okay, that's bad, stay away, very logical. No, it says, when you see evil, there's going to be a response. You're going to abhor that. You hate that. You detest that.

You're going to put it away as far from you as you can. Abhor what is evil, but he says, cling to what is good. Desire good. Go after good. Grab hold of good and never let go. It has to be from the heart and the desire of the heart to do those things. Be kindly affectionate, verse 10, to one another with brotherly love, and honor giving preference to one another, not lagging in diligence, but fervent in the Spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continually steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.

It has blessed those who persecute you, bless and do not curse, rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. There will be times when our emotional expressions are going to be shared with one another, and the relationships that we have with each other. This is going to be time, brethren, when we rejoice together. You have young people who grow up in the church, fall in love, and get married.

There's babies that come along, families that grow. Those are all opportunities for us to rejoice together, and there's great joy in those things. But it also says, you know, we're to weep with those that weep. There'll be times of loss. There'll be times where people are going through deep struggles, and, frankly, we feel their pain because we're their brethren, and we walk through those things with them. There's going to be times where we will have the loss and the death of a brother or sister in Christ, and we will weep together.

But we also rejoice together before God as well. These are emotional responses, but this is how it should be. It is what God has given us opportunity to participate in, not just by knowing His Word, but being brought into a body of fellowship with one another.

The fact is, emotions are essential to living our spiritual lives before God. I wouldn't want to try it without it. It's not just a step one, step two, step three, ABC. It's conviction of heart and a desire to pursue these things with all our beings. God's given us His Spirit to aid us, to help us understand the balance, and to help us exercise our emotions in a right and proper way, as He attends. As God's people, we don't need to fear emotions. We need to seek to live them in a balanced way. Scripture tells us we need to hate sin and love the truth. There's emotional response in that.

The Bible tells us, as God's people, we need to sorrow with godly sorrow, leading to repentance. Scripture tells us, as God's people, we need to show love, mercy, and compassion towards one another. It says, as God's people, we need to yearn for the kingdom of God, and to seek after it diligently. Scripture tells us, as God's people, we need to be angry at the right times. But be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. As God's people, we need to sigh and cry for the plight of our fellow man, for the condition of the world around us. You know, do we have an emotional response when we see the conditions of the world and the trajectory of where these things are going? Indeed, we should. Scripture tells us to count it all joy, even in our trials. Or to rejoice. Jesus Christ told His disciples, don't rejoice that you have power over the demons, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Your name is in the Book of Life, and God is working in your life.

Rejoice in that. Scripture tells us we need to worship God with joy and with thanksgiving. This is just a short list I came up with off the top of my head. You could come up with many more things to add to this. The point is, the Scripture is full of opportunity for us to express our emotions before God as we live this way of life. There are those in the Scripture that the Bible calls being past feeling.

They're not referred to in a positive light, brethren, and we need to make sure that neither you nor I fall under that description. Let us always strive to use emotions that God has given us as He intends for them to be used. They do, in fact, play an important role in our lives and in our spiritual lives today. It's an important role that they play in our relationship with God. And our emotions play an important role as we live each and every day seeking after His Kingdom and His righteousness.